This wonderful piece was written by Lisa Barone on Outspoken Media. I loved reading this because her insights are right on the money. How do I know? Because I've been on Pinterest for a week and this social network takes you beyond all the buzzwords, the how to articles and lets you connect with others in ways that have the potential to create deeper engagement that can is definitely beginning to show ROI in more ways than one.

Here's an excerpt that captures the essence of what she is saying. I highly recommend you read the comments as well.

Excerpt:

"Anyone who knows me will tell you: I’m completely commitment phobic. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of emerging social media networks. I cringe whenever a new one is released because I simply Can’t.

"For me, the social network doing that right now is Pinterest.Wait? Pinterest? Is that really anything more than an outlet for pictures of sleeping cats, fancy home décor and items deemed orange?

It is.

I’ll tell you why I love it and why, as a brand, you should love it too.

****One of the great things social media has done is that it’s undeniably changed the way businesses and consumers are able to interact.

****It broke through an imaginary wall that had long divided the two and allowed businesses to share parts of themselves which, in turn, allowed consumers to seek out businesses that are weird in the same way or that believed in the same things.

Last November I spoke at TEDx about how through the Web, weird became profitable.

****Weird became something businesses could leverage. To me, that’s where social media is most effective –

****when businesses use weird to be strategically authentic and show customers their essence. It’s when they let certain parts of themselves hang out so their customers can get to know whose behind the product or service that they love so much.

And that’s what Pinterest does really well. It epitomizes what is right and powerful in social media. Sure, Mashable may still use it to hoard marketing infographics for page views, but that’s not how it’s most effective.

**Pinterest works best when brands show customers what’s going on below the surface".

Pinterest is a new way of engaging with your audience. It's important to remember that each social network is a unique enviornment and that requires a different way of presenting content, allowing others to see different sides of you, know who is behind your brand, what you stand for and find points of connection with you.

The other day I posted 'You Are What You Curate - That's Why Pinterest is so Hot' - It's a really great article and sets the tone for this new social network and how to be effective here. http://bit.ly/xZKAM3

This piece was written by my friend and fellow curator, Beth Kanter for socialmediatoday. It's one of the best articles because she really understands Pinterest and is using it effectively.

Here's what she had to say:

My Pinboards on Pinterest...

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where you can organize and share images and videos you discover on the web. Think of it as social network of visuals – where you can find images from other people with the same interest or use it to curate your own visual “interest space.”

The clean interface and simplicity of its features make it easy to use and gives you a calm feeling which perhaps accounts for its popularity.

**At first glance, the site attracts people interested in using it for non-work interests, such as wedding planning, decorating, scrapbooking, and family photos, but brands and nonprofit professionals are also using it to curate information related to professional and organizational topics in a visually pleasing way.

****But if you want to be successful, you must curate and share relevant content.

Thanks so much for curating this post also published on Social Media Today. The original on my blog: http://www.bethkanter.org/pinterest/ got the most retweets - probably because of the wide interest. I noticed you were curating a separate pinterest collection too. I put together small curated collection of resources about Pinterest for Nonprofits as I will be teaching it in workshops this year in the Middle East - http://socialmedia-strategy.wikispaces.com/Pininterest

I am updating this post because I now have my own experience of this exciting new way of connecting with my audience. Brands are communicating with consumers in whole new ways. Pinterest is still by invite only, will let you know when it goes public. Be sure to stay tuned and follow the latest trends, reviews, news and developments in social curation on my new topic "PINEREST WATCH".

I selected this post written by Elad Gil because not only was it interesting and timely, but the comments from his readers were equally as valuable. So many different social curation platforms emerging, Pinterest is one to watch.......

Excerpt:

Social Content Curation As The Next Big Thing

The most interesting wave hitting the social web in 2012 is social curation. This was kicked off in 2011 as Pinterest's growth was noticed by Silicon Valley and a number of companies quickly followed suit -

**Snip.It launched as a social information curation platform, Quora adopted boards for a similar purpose, and Fab.com launched a structured social commerce feed.

There's so much information in this post, here's the takeaway. I would love to hear your comments about this next wave......

Takeaway:

2012 Will Be The Year of Curated Sets

**2012 will likely see an acceleration of structured, push button, social curation across the web. Why? Because most users don't want to take much effort to produce content, and consuming content in a structured manner (especially photos) is also much faster.

**Just as the first wave of social media has transformed the consumption of information, this next wave of social curation will fundamentally change how users find and interact with content over time.

This is another compelling story about Pinterest - the video says it all. It's a deaf woman's story about how she's using visuals to communicate her story. There's something for everyone on this network and this is just the beginning.

Intro:

I'm discovering new ways to use social media to show I can integrate and make noise in the masses. I love how versatile Pinterest is. It serves many purposes..

What Google did for organizing information, Pinterest does for curating inspiration.

****Pinterest differs from social networks like Facebook and microblogging platforms like Twitter and Tumblr because its focus is not a real time, up-to-date stream of status updates, but rather a curated collection of content that inspires a user enough to think “must pin this.”

**There is no paid advertising or media (yet), so all engagement has been purely organic.

This piece was written by Arik C. Hansen - he was fascinated by the growth of Pinterest in such a short time so he set out to ask 15 people that he refers to as "super users" what they like about Pinterest, how much time they spend on there per week, and more. In this piece, there are 13 people answering this question, I decided to answer it as well. Sorry it's so long, I got carried away:-)

Intro:

"It may be a niche social network, but Pinterest is growing like mad.

While other tools and networks like Quora, Instagram (my favorite) and Google Plus have stolen the headlines this year, Pinterest has quietly amassed a relatively huge user base–especially among young women (in my opinion)".

Here are some amazing statistics:

**From October 2010 to October 2011 Pinterest grew from just 40,000 users to a whopping 3.2 million. That’s some serious growth.

**Pinterest adding thousands of users each month.

**Its users are also spending an inordinate amount of time on the site. And, this, at a time when EVERYONE is complaining about being social networked to death (see Google+).

**Several Pinterest users that claim they spend upwards of two hours A DAY on the site. Hmmm…sound familiar? Facebook’s entire MO (or at least their initial MO) comes down to finding ways to keep people on their site.

**Pinterest appears to have found the magic formula.

****But WHY is the site so damn popular? The author set out to discover. He

pegged 12 Pinterest “power users” and asked them 5 simple questions about their use, how brands might use the platform and the future of Pinterest

My feedback:

Some of the people who commented didn't feel the people he interviewed were what they would consider "super users". I think the point here is that it gives you a birdseye view of some of how and why people are spending so much time on here. More information will follow as the site evolves.

My commentary:

I'm going to add my two cents here because I love Pinterest and this is my experience.

**It's an amazing platform to let others see me beyond my profile and business personna. There's a story in the background about who I am as a person. This gives people points of connection where they can identify with me in business as well as through common interests. I had an experience today where I connected with someone on Facebook through an article I posted. They immediately went to twitter, came here, then to Pinterest. This person lives in another country, we've never spoken before but we spoke tonight and we're already talking about collaborating on a project.

****people do business with people they like and trust

**Pinterest allows me to be visually creative

**Pinterest allows me to fantisize about going to places all over the world by posting gorgeous images

**Pinterest allows me to dream and imagine my dream house

**Pinterest allows me to relax, it's not like any other enviornment

**Pinterest allows me to find other people with common interests and sensibility

**Pinterest allows me to explore my creative side, bond with the painters and photographers and deepen my relationship with them

**Pinterest allows people to click only on things they're interested in and leave the rest

I selected this piece by Ross Dawson for The Future of Journalism blog. Ross is one of my trusted sources and he continues to shed light on the future of journalism.

My commentary:

I see clear parallels between journalists and content curators and believe these are at least partly demonstrated by the points I have chosen to quote and particularly the smaller portions I bolded. I look forward to clear and growing collaborations . We have much to learn from each other.

Ross also points out the trend towards personalized and local news delivery and suggests that journalists will need to understand how social curation works. And for me, this is the key to the overlap between the established profession of journalism and the still developing discipline of content curation.

Ross sets the tone by stating:

"There are eight aspects of news that its audience will value, be prepared to pay for, and that will provide a viable financial foundation for quality journalism in the emerging media environment."

The article delves into each of these. Here's what particularly caught my attention.

**Timeliness is becoming ever-more important in a world ravenous for immediacy.

**Investigative reporting will retain a central role in society. Increasingly this will involve data analysis, and often harnessing information and insights provided by many citizens.

**Insight, through adding context, analysis, and synthesis to news, is where some of the greatest value lies, particularly in business and political journalism.

**Those who can provide this insight, be they domain experts or journalists with the requisite breadth of experience, will always have a bright future.

**The skills required to present information, ideas and data in a visual and highly aesthetic format will shift far closer to the heart of what it is to be a journalist.

Nuphero
Hi There, I just checked this link and it's something new, it wasn't like this before. I'll try to find you another link. You might also google I tried to get it on Google and it comes up the same way. So sorry, about this. Will have to check into this and see what's going on......

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.